Even though it has lost some decorative details over the years, Castle Stanton still drops jaws of passers-by who find themselves in unfamiliar territory here on the border of East Liberty and Highland Park. It looks like a 1920s Hollywood set: we expect Douglas Fairbanks dressed as Robin Hood to leap from an upstairs window and land on his feet after a series of spectacular acrobatics.
This advertisement from the Pittsburgh Press, September 21, 1930, shows us some of the pointy bits that have since been removed.
This Hollywood front hides an unexpected secret, which will be revealed if we walk around to the side of the building.
Now we see the outlines of an older Queen Anne mansion, converted to an apartment house by the addition of a Hollywood-fantasy front facing Stanton Avenue.
Alpha Terrace, a set of unusually fine Victorian rowhouses designed by James T. Steen1 in an eclectic Romanesque with bits of Second Empire and Gothic thrown in, is a historic district of its own. The houses are on both sides of Beatty Street in East Liberty. The row on the northwest side of the street went up in about 1885.
The houses on the southeast side of the street are a few years newer, probably from about 1894, and they incorporate more of the Queen Anne style, with shingles and ornate woodwork.
The rest of our pictures are from the sunny side of the street, for very practical photographic reasons. We’ll return when the light is better for the houses on the southeast side.
Separate ownership is not always kind to terraces like this, but the aluminum siding on the roof is about the worst alteration Alpha Terrace has suffered.
Old Pa Pitt is nearly certain of this attribution. The Wikipedia article, possibly following the Pittsburgh History and Landmarks Foundation, attributes the design to Murphy & Hamilton, but Father Pitt is fairly sure that Murphy & Hamilton were contractors, not architects; they probably built the terraces. Alpha Terrace is attributed to Steen in a Historic Resource Survey Form for another of his buildings that was demolished anyway (PDF). The style of Alpha Terrace is very similar to the style of Steen’s downtown YMCA (demolished long ago), which, though it was on a much grander scale, used the same prickly witch’s caps and squarish dormers; it was pictured in the American Architect and Building News for February 10, 1883. ↩︎
Samsung Galaxy A15 5G. This picture is more than 13 megabytes if you enlarge it; be careful on a metered connection.
Designed by Daniel Burnham, this is the only skyscraper left in East Liberty; another one, designed by Frederick Osterling, was demolished decades ago when the neighborhood’s fortunes were sinking. Now the neighborhood is once again bustling, and the Highland Building, after years of abandonment, is beautifully restored.
Highland Avenue crosses Centre Avenue in East Liberty at an odd angle, creating an opportunity for two typically Pittsburghish odd-shaped buildings. First, the Wallace Building, shoved into a sharp corner and coming to a point at the intersection.
Old Pa Pitt hopes his readers will forgive a slightly imperfect composite of three photographs.
Samsung Galaxy A15 5G.
On the opposite side of Centre Avenue, the Stevenson Building fills in an oblique angle. Its prominent corner entrance makes the most of its location.
There is some uncertainty about the design of this building. It is listed by the city as a building designed by William Ross Proctor and built in 1896. However, Father Pitt finds a 1927 listing in the Charette, the magazine of the Pittsburgh Architectural Club, that matches this building perfectly and assigns it to O. M. Topp: “313. Architect: O. M. Topp, Jenkins Arcade, Pittsburgh, Pa. Owner: James B. Stevenson. Title: Store and Office Building. Location: Highland and Center Avenues. Approximate size: 25×100 ft.; three stories and basement. Cubage: 100,000 cu. ft. First story: Amherst buff sandstone; second and third stories: Roman brick and terra cotta.” Nevertheless, a building of exactly these dimensions stood here long before 1927, and we have not been able to find any newspaper stories about its destruction or replacement. It is possible that Topp only supervised renovations, and the editor of the Charette misunderstood the information he was given. As of now, therefore, Father Pitt assigns the building to O. M. Topp, but with the understanding that Proctor might have been the original architect.
Update:More recent research finds that the architect O. M. Topp was hired for a building at this site in 1927, but Father Pitt does not yet know whether it was a complete replacement of the Proctor building or merely some renovations. The article as originally written follows.
This classical building was designed (in 1896) by architect William Ross Proctor to preside over this corner as if it owned both streets. By placing the entrance at the corner, Mr. Proctor refuses to decide whether the building is on Centre or Highland. “Both,” says that entrance.
Look up as you pass to appreciate the elaborate detail of the cornice.
This glorious Renaissance palace was built in 1910; the architect was Thomas Hannah, who also gave us the Keenan Building. It is now a hotel.
Addendum: Here is a picture of the building when it was freshly built, from the June 1914 issue of The Builder, which is devoted to works of Thomas Hannah. The long side faced open space in those days.
Better known to Pittsburghers as Motor Square Garden: it opened as a market house in 1900, but failed a few years later and began a long association with the automobile business. The architects were Peabody and Stearns, who also designed Horne’s department store downtown and several prominent mansions in the East End neighborhoods.
This beautiful building has a long and varied history. It seems to have been built a little before 1910 by a dry-cleaning company. After a while the East Liberty Chamber of Commerce moved in to preside over the slow decline of East Liberty. In 2001, when the East Liberty revival was barely beginning, the Werner Building became a performance-art space. Now, with East Liberty booming, it’s a profitable property.
The metalwork on top supported a billboard where artists spelled out messages, but in 2018 one artist posted a message so offensive that the building’s owner had it removed and shut down the billboard scheme. What was this offensive message? “THERE ARE BLACK PEOPLE IN THE FUTURE.” That was all. Father Pitt can only say that, if you are offended by the idea that there are Black people in the future, then you can go off and get yourself your own future, because old Pa Pitt does not want to be part of it.
The whole building is lavishly festooned with terra cotta and stained glass.
